BUCS SPLW
Wednesday 14th October

The women’s football first team created history on Wednesday, when they began their Premier League campaign. This was the first time women’s football had made it to the premier league and they were given one of the toughest starts, having to face UWIC, the BUCS overall champions from 2008, in their opening fixture.

The team were nervous yet quietly confident about their potential for this season, having retained a large majority of last year’s promotion winners, with some very promising freshers joining.

The game started brightly with Pompey not giving too much respect to their opponents. Although UWIC passed the ball well and kept possession effectively they could not break down the well organised and marshalled defensive side. UWIC were limited to long-range shots that keeper Sally-Anne Thompson dealt with comfortably.

Pompey used their width well and the pace of Rachel Catling and Gemma Hillier threatened the UWIC left-side on several occasions. Pompey could have taken the lead inside the first half when Helen Bass closed down the UWIC keeper, sliding in to win the ball; she was inches away from keeping the ball in play and an easy tap-in.

This in turn only caused to motivate the UWIC side and Pompey’s tight defence was eventually breached five minutes before half-time when their centre midfielder picked up a loose ball and rifled a shot into the top corner.

In the 2nd half, the Portsmouth girls knew that there was a chance to get themselves back in the game, and the pattern of the 1st half continued, with UWIC unable to create clear-cut chances due to the impenetrable defence. Portsmouth started to relax more in possession and there were some good passing moves but without enough chances being created.

Coach Lee Moyce would have been delighted with his team’s defensive shape and organisation having worked on it the night before in training. The girls did exactly what was asked of them, and it proved worthy as UWIC could not break them down. The hard work started from the strikers closing down, the midfielders pressing every player and the defence not giving their strikers a whiff of goal.

With time running out, Portsmouth were still trailing 1-0, but then their golden chance arrived. Kirstie White won the ball in the right back position, she played a neat pass to Nieshia Boal who in turn played a delightful, defence-splitting ball over the top for Helen Bass to go one-on-one with the keeper. She duly delivered the equaliser with a neat left foot finish. With only 5 minutes remaining in the game, Portsmouth held on to record an impressive 1-1 draw for their premier league debut.

A brilliant team performance, with every single player contributing and a tremendous work ethic created a great platform for the girls to continue this record-breaking season with confidence in their ability to push on in this league.